Return
by Belle Mortre
Summary: Time passes, people change, but hearts are always true. When Scipio returns to Venice after several years, he finds solace, and temptation, in an unexpected place. ScipioXHornet Rater M for later chapters


Hi folks! This is my first Thief Lord fic. I re-read the book not that long ago and this just popped into my head.

Just to clarify a few things…For the purposes of this fic (and in accordance with my own personal feelings about the vagueness of the description of Scipio's altered age) I would put Scipio's "adult" body at about twenty-five, though his mind is still that of a nineteen or twenty year old (someone correct me if the math there is a little screwy).

Also, a few quick translations that will come up as we go along. :_ Pasticceria_means pastry shop, _idiota_means, obviously idiot_impappinare l'asino_means bumbling assand_bastardo di topo_means rat-bastardI think that is all of them, but if I missed one, just ask me and I'll let you know.

Enjoy and please review (I've recently discovered my inner review-whore, and besides, it's always good to know what people think of you writing…unless you want to hurt my feeling. That's just not cool)

Once again, enjoy!

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The gondola bumped against the soft wood of the mooring with a spongy _thud. _The gondolier leapt onto one of the stone pilings to tie up his boat as his passenger disembarked. The tall, dark-haired young man was so slim and sharp of face that the gondolier, though considering himself rather well seasoned, had been more than a little unnerved by the avian-man's silence.

Their only exchange had been when the young man had first hailed the gondola and asked to be taken to the market at the Palazzo di Santori. After that there had been complete silence for an unnerving twenty minutes as the gondolier had maneuvered his craft through the afternoon traffic until they had arrived at their destination.

The stranger jumped to the pavement in one smooth motion and without saying another word, pressed twenty lira (the prearranged price), into the gondolier's hand, threw his rucksack over his shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

The gondolier felt himself release a breath he didn't even know he had been holding as the unnerving man passed out of his sight and, hopefully, out of his life.

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Scipio Fortunato walked slowly along the narrow streets of the city that had, until seven years ago, been his home.

Venice. How he had missed it. It brought to mind so many memories. Playing in the gardens as a small child, going to mass in the beautiful cathedrals…the Stella and its young inhabitants.

"_Young no more,"_ Scipio mused as he made his way into the bustling open-air market of the Palazzo di Santori. Mosca must be nearly twenty-one, Prosper and Hornet 19, Ricco 15 and Bo 11. The though of the young men and woman his old friends must have grown up into made his heart twitch at all the time he had lost.

Seven years had gone by since last he had seen their faces, heard their voices. He even missed Ida. For all her eccentric habits, the motherly affection she had come to bestow on all of them had earned her a place in Scipio's heart.

And then there was Victor. Of the little time they had had together after the carousel affair, Scipio would remember and cherish every moment. They had spent nearly ten months working together as a detective team before Victor had made the mistake of getting on a water taxi late one night.

Both he and the driver were very sleepy, so much so that neither noticed that the boat was traveling too fast for transport in a tiny back water-alley. The boat had crashed into a building that was, thankfully, abandoned. However, the two men on the boat had died almost immediately when the boat's engine exploded and the vessel went up in flames.

It was not long after this incident that Scipio left Venice. It was just too painful to stay in a place that constantly reminded him of the man that had in those months become more of a father to him than his own.

So he had bounced around western Europe for the last few years, taking detective jobs wherever he could to pay his way in each city. He had stayed the longest in Madrid, where he had then met a Greek woman not much older than him.

Hekate was her name, and a more awful woman never walked the earth. She had a cruel streak in her that remained well hidden until someone provoked her. Then her razor-like tongue would rip them to shreds and leave them a bloody mess on the floor. She was a deceptive snake that deserved a good beating, not that Scipio would ever raise his hand against a woman.

But she was beautiful, and for a while her presence in his bed had kept some of Scipio's grief in the back of his mind. Hekate was terribly possessive and when she had sensed that his interest in her was waning she had convinced him to return with her to her home city of Chania on the island of Crete.

Scipio had only ended their affair a few weeks ago…and was feeling a thousand times better for it. Hekate had screamed and raged and thrown whatever she could reach at Scipio's head, but it was better this way. Venice was calling him home.

The young man walked slowly across the square, thinking idly of finding a place to rest for a few moments. He landed finally on the large fountain in the center of the square, where winged lions played, the water falling over their pretty marble hides.

Scipio settled back against the carved base of the fountain and watched the people go by, trying to ignore the cold from the marble soaking through his clothes.

He watched as people bustled around him and the Italy of his childhood came roaring back. It was in the sway of the young girls' hips as they sashayed across the piazza, and in the applauding looks men, both young and old, gave them.

It was in the old women in their uniform black, rosaries clutched in hand as they made their ways home. It was in the cooing of the pigeons that formed patches of moving gray clouds on the ground, and in the steel of the true clouds high above, pregnant with the promise of snow.

Scipio took in all this and for the first time since his boat had docked in Naples the day before, he began to relax and allow himself to truly appreciate that he had come home. Nowhere else in the world would he ever fine the simplicity and grandeur that was his Venice, his home.

One figure caught his attention. Among the masses of dark overcoats and dark heads heavily covered from the cold there was a flash of teal that caught Scipio's eye. The form of a young woman came into view then vanished again behind an enormously fat old man who was arguing loudly with a butcher over the price of a leg of lamb, but not before Scipio found himself treated to quite the vision of loveliness.

He was intrigued not only by the flowing teal skirts that surged around her feet with the tiniest movement and the upswept hair that seemed quite out of place in a market, but also the fact that she wore no coat, merely a delicate fringed shawl of crocheted cream lace.

There was something of the gypsy to her. Perhaps it was her clothes, or the ivory hair corkscrews that kept her masses of smoky brown curls in place atop her head. But that didn't make much sense, as Scipio knew that the last band of gypsies to set foot in Venice had done so more than four hundred years ago and never since returned. Most modern gypsies of the Mediterranean stayed near the mountains or else to a continual circuit that ran through most of the larger cities. He had met many such bands in Madrid before he moved on to Chania.

He searched the crowd intently and after thirty seconds he was rewarded with the sight of the woman, who couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty, as she emerged from a _pasticceria_, tucking a small wrapped pastry box into the basket hanging from her arm.

Scipio watched the woman as she maneuvered her way through the masses of milling people like a ghost. There was something terribly familiar about the curve of her cheek…the exotic tilt of her eyes. No, it couldn't be…it couldn't _possibly_ be…

As Scipio sat there wondering at the enormity of the odds against his suspicions, the woman did something that banished any doubts he might have had about her identity.

She had sidled up beside a large group of Canadian tourists, all of whom had their cameras trained intently on the architecture around them. None of them noticed when the woman, moving with actions too quick for any eye but the most trained, brushed past them and lifted two wallets and a small pair of binoculars from the group. She never slowed in her stride and two seconds later she had disappeared into the crowd again, tucking her loot into her basket along with her grocery shopping. She was good: none of the tourists had so much as twitched.

Scipio's interest had been fully piqued. He knew his suspicions were probably wrong, that it was simply the rush of memories being back in Venice brought to him, but he couldn't stop himself from getting up off the fountain and following the woman as she moved out of the square.

He followed at a safe distance, never getting close enough that she would notice but always keeping her securely in view.

She led him along a canal for some time before ducking into a side street. Scipio followed discreetly.

Suddenly her steps became quicker. Had she marked him? She turned a corner and when Scipio followed a moment later it was to find himself at the edge of the Campo Santa Margherita.

She glided across the plaza and up the stairs of the cathedral, pulling the lace shawl over her head respectfully. She vanished into the candle-lit interior of the building.

_Uh-oh_, he thought. There were countless places inside a cathedral she could hide, if indeed that was her aim. But maybe Scipio was being crazy. Maybe he had spent the last quarter of an hour chasing some random finger-smith who was nothing more than the platform upon which he had wished to build a memory. In that case, he could have very easily frightened this poor woman while she was simply on her way to her evening prayers. What an _idiota_ Or, as Hekate would have said, in her awful, mocking imitation of Italian, _impappinare l'asino_

It was the memory of Hekate's scathing voice that propelled Scipio forward again. If the woman was whom he hoped, then he couldn't let the moment pass.

With a deep breath to fortify his nerves, Scipio pushed open the cathedral doors.

Once inside he was immediately swamped by the scents of beeswax candles and frankincense. The candlelight was dim, and somewhere, in one of the many side chambers, the low murmur of priests at their prayers could be heard. The soft cadence of the Latin chanting soaked into the very foundation of the building, and it was as though Scipio had been transported back half a millennium, to the time when Venice was it's own state and the priests and merchants ruled.

Scipio swept his gaze over the main chamber of the great church. He saw many people kneeling in the pews with their heads bent in prayer, but not the one for which he searcher.

He made his way slowly up the aisle, looking left and right at all times. When he reached the front off the church and stood before the alter and crucifix and his still had not found the woman, he heaved a heavy sigh of frustration. An old woman kneeling to his left looked up from her clasped hands where a rosary worked between her fingers. She gave Scipio an admonishing look and glanced pointedly at the alter as though to say, _"Shame on you boy! Show some respect"_

Scipio immediately made an apologetic gesture and knelt before the alter. He made a quick Sign of the Cross across his chest before moving quickly away.

So that was it: the chase was over. Scipio thumped slowly and dejectedly out of the cathedral through one of the side doors, the finished thrill of adrenalin already leaving him with a rather flattened feeling. He scanned the darkening skies and contemplated his return to the small room he had taken in a boarding house across the city.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of teal and his heart gave a leap of happiness.

He raced across the square, scattering pigeons as he went, and came around the corner so quickly that it took his brain a second to process the new images in front of him. It was in that crucial moment when he stood stunned by the narrow darkness of the alley into which he had turned that a pair of strong, slim arms shot out from the shadows behind him and he was pulled backwards against the form of a much smaller, but nonetheless powerful person.

He felt his blood race the icy metal of a blade was pressed against his throat.

A cold voice spoke in his ear, "Why are you following me, _bastardo di topo_?"

The voice was harsh, icy and as chilling as the Italian winter night settling across the city like a blanket, but even so, it was a voice Scipio knew. He almost laughed with triumph again.

"Hello Hornet." He said, grinning.

He heard he gasp and she pushed him away from her. He turned.

She stood there in all her gypsy-ish glory. Her mouth hung open in a perfect 'o' of surprise and the blade with which only moments ago she had threatened Scipio clattered to the ground.

"Oh god," She whispered. _"Scip!"_


End file.
